Fighting to Abolish Unjust Debts: Check Out Tikkun's Winter 2015 Issue

Jubilee and Debt Abolition
It’s the Jubilee Year according to the Jewish Calendar – the year when all debts are to be forgiven and all land redistributed in equal parcels. In a time when debts have reached unprecedented levels and people are suffering under this burden, how can people of all faiths – as well as our contemporary secular societies – be inspired by this radical biblical vision? The Winter 2015 issue of Tikkun features people putting the concept of Jubilee into action in the fight for debt abolition.
Don’t miss out on this important discussion. You can get a taste of it by clicking on each article and reading the first few paragraphs. Then, if you are not yet a subscriber or member of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, you’ll be asked to subscribe or join (after which you will get the print and/or online version of the magazine). If you are already a paid-up subscriber or member, you should be able to read the full article online and be getting the print version in the mail. Many of us forget how to log in to read subscriber-only content online; please don’t hesitate to seek guidance on how to register to read the online version of the print magazine. Just email leila@tikkun.org or call 510-644-1200 for help. If you are a subscriber or member of the NSP and haven’t received the print magazine in the mail yet, please email leila@tikkun.org. We want to fix the problem as soon as we know about it!
Now, for your taste of the magazine…

Sabbatical Year and Jubilee in Twenty-First-Century America by Michael Lerner

A campaign to reinstitute the Sabbatical Year and Jubilee in industrial societies could fundamentally transform the global capitalist system. Read More » Adapting Ancient Ethical Principles in Modern Times by David Korten How might we update the Bible’s call for the periodic redistribution of wealth? Could we use estate taxes to create a trust fund for every child? Read More » Jubilee on Wall Street: Taking the Bull by the Horns by Shane Claiborne Jubilee was God’s alternative to empire, to Wall Street, and to the patterns of injustice. Let’s commit wild and joyful acts of Jubilee every day. Read More » Reimagining Jubilee: A Political Horizon for Our Times by Pamela Brown Economic forms of Jim Crow continue to exist throughout the credit industry today. A modern call for Jubilee would seek to level the racial playing field. Read More » You Are Not a Loan: Strike Debt and the Emerging Debtors Movement by Hannah Appel Millions of Americans incur debt to pay for basic needs. To escape this trap, we must “come out” as debtors and start experiencing our debts collectively. Read More » Power Without the King: The Debt Strike as Credible Threat by Paul Hampton If we want to abolish debt, we’ll have to do it ourselves. If debtors refuse to pay, our debts cease being our problem – they become the bank’s problem! Read More » Buddhism and Debt by Alex Caring-Lobel What resources does Buddhism offer toward Jubilee? To achieve the Buddhist goal of release from karmic debt, we must annul economic debt. Read More » A Religious Movement to End Predatory Payday Lending by Rachel Hope Anderson Interfaith coalitions have much to offer in the fight against abusive loans. Read More » Transcending Market Logic: Envisioning a Global Gift Economy by Genevieve Vaughan The act of mothering shatters the market-based expectation of equal exchange. Building on that model, let’s build a global gift economy. Read More » Debt Forgiveness: Who Owes Whom for What? by Nancy Holmstrom Most debtors have committed no wrongs, so what is called for is liberation – not forgiveness. The colossal, valid debt that remains is climate debt. Read More » Building an International Bank for Right Livelihood by Joel Magnuson It’s time to create an alternative to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund – a global bank that prioritizes sustainability, not growth. Read More » Embracing the Radical Economics of the Bible by Marcus Borg The spirit of the Jubilee laws is clear and relevant: to prevent the emergence of a permanently impoverished underclass. Read More » A New Take on the First Commandment: Building the Religious Counterculture by Ana Levy-Lyons If we worship anything, it should be the power of liberation. The first commandment warns us away from wealth, status, and other false gods. Read More » Between Paradigm Shift Judaism and Neo-Hasidism: The New Metaphysics of Jewish Renewal by Shaul Magid Led by Reb Zalman, the Jewish Renewal movement ushered in a new Aquarian Age of Judaism. To make it stick, we need to talk metaphysics. Read More » Renewal Judaism: Building Closeness to God by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi Seeing Earth from outer space and surviving the Holocaust forced us to rethink our relation to the Torah. This paradigm shift is still underway. Read More » Growing Toward God: Jewish Movement through an Axial Age by Yotam Schachter Just as plants are heliotropic beings that grow toward the sun, we humans are theotropic beings that grow toward God. Read More » Silencing Dissent: How Biased Civil Rights Policies Stifle Dialogue on Israel by Chip Berlet and Maria Planansky Packed with right-wing demagogues, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has started using its authority to suppress legitimate criticisms of Israel. Read More » What Makes a Poem Jewish? by David Danoff Review ofThe Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American PoetryEdited by Deborah Ager and M.E. Silverman. Read More » Loving at the Wrong Time by Katie Herman Review ofThe Road to Emmausby Spencer Reece. Read More » Transcending Economic Dualities by Miki Kashtan Review of Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons by David Bollier. Read More » Reading Death by Erica Brown Review of To Mourn a Child: Jewish Responses to Neonatal and Childhood Death Edited by Jeffrey Saks and Joel Wolowelsky andKaddish: Women’s VoicesEdited by Michal Smart and Barbara Ashkenas. Read More » Embracing Change: Forgotten Traditions Within Sephardic Judaism by Tzvi Marx Review of Rabbinic Creativity in the Modern Middle East by Zvi Zohar. Read More » POETRY: Demitasse by Phillis Levin You evaded the fire-storm, reaching the shore / Of the New World long before, so nothing / To speak of has shaken you more than the rage / In my father’s voice or my brother’s infant fist / Shattering a pane of the china closet, leaving you / Unharmed (the shards swept away, the glass / Replaced in a day). Read More »